Final Bearing

by George Wallace

  Nothing worked. It seemed to have just disappeared.

  After an hour's fruitless searching, Mendoza finally was willing to concede defeat.

  "Skipper, I'm sorry. We just can't find it. He could be anywhere in a ten-mile circle by now."

  Ward wearily ran his hand through his hair. He wasn't ready to give up yet. They had come too far to quit now. He stared pointedly at the charts before him. Finally, rubbing the two-day bristle on his chin, his face broke into an odd smile. Joe Glass looked at him questioningly.

  Ward jabbed his index finger on a spot on the chart.

  "Nav, broach to the surface, go to a full bell and get here to this point as quickly as you can. Then get back down to a hundred and fifty feet."

  Glass looked over the skipper’s shoulder at the place where Ward was pointing. One leg of the strait narrowed into the Admiralty Passage between Port Townsend and Whidbey Island. The deep water was only two miles wide there. If the mini-sub came that way, Spadefish would have an easier time of finding it. But life wasn't quite that simple. That was a very big “if.”

  "Aren't you taking a chance?” Glass questioned. “There are at least a dozen ways he could be heading. He could even be turning into one of the channels to the north. He could be making for the Haro Straits, San Juan Channel, or Rosario Straits, trying to get to any of a thousand islands. Or he could even just be taking the back way around Whidbey Island."

  Ward felt the sub lurch to the surface and accelerate as he answered.

  "It's a risk all right. But, Joe, we have to try something besides just sitting here and hoping they sail by and tap on our hatch. I don't think they'd go to all this effort to smuggle coke into Canada. They’d still have to get it into the US somehow. I'm betting they want to get to a nice quiet place inside Puget Sound to offload. We just need to find where." Ward stepped over to the radio. "We might as well tell JDIA what's going on. We’ll want Bethea to tell Puget Sound Traffic Control we're coming anyway."

  “Tell him one other thing, Skipper.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Ask him to tell those bastards to make a little more noise.”

  Spadefish waited.

  Midchannel Bank lay a few hundred yards to port. Admiralty Bay was a little over a mile away to starboard. The sub hovered just above the bottom with her sensitive bow-mounted sonars pointed to the northwest, the way the mini-sub would be coming if Jon Ward had guessed correctly. The channel was shallow, no more than twenty fathoms at some points between Point Wilson and Admiralty Head. The mini-sub would have to come shallow then drop back down into the deeper waters once it was here in the bay.

  Ward hoped to hear it then. That is, if it was even coming this way.

  Time was running out. They had been sitting here for three hours now, more than enough time for the target to have caught up with them. Had it gone some other way after all? Had it slipped past them without their hearing it? Was it even a mini-sub at all?

  Ward was beginning to worry. They had come too far, worked and sweated too much to be defeated here. Even if the mini-sub showed up again, it was going to be hairy. There wasn't any other way to track this guy except with Spadefish and her active sonar. There was no use in their going to the surface and banging away. The pings would just be reflected away from the target. That meant staying submerged, down in the same medium where the target was operating. If the min-sub went much farther down the Sound, it would get very tight. Ward knew the water was plenty deep enough, but the steep vertical walls closed in quickly to a very narrow slot.

  Mendoza's voice boomed over the 21MC.

  "Conn, sonar. We’re picking up tonals on the conformal array. We've got our boy back! Bearing three-five-one."

  Ward wiped the sweat from his forehead and took a sip of coffee. Damn stuff was cold but he didn’t mind one bit.

  "Okay, we're back in business. We'll let him generate past us then slip in behind him. Watch the water depth from here on out. It gets shallow and the channel gets narrower. Nav, launch the slot buoy."

  Quietly, the old boat moved out into the center of the channel. A small red cylinder floated up to the surface behind it. When the cylinder reached the surface, a thin antenna popped up and a coded radio message bounced off the P-3 airplane that circled overhead, letting them know that the hunt was on again.

  The strange little convoy moved south down the Admiralty Inlet Channel, past the entrance to the Hood Canal, past Useless Bay, and on into Puget Sound. Here the channel deepened considerably, down to over a hundred fathoms. Spadefish followed the mini-sub as it sank deep into the dark, cold water. The bustling city of Seattle was only a mile to their port and the lush green hills of Bainbridge Island were a mile to starboard. Had they been on the surface, they could have waved at the tourists in the Space Needle.

  There was no time for waving and precious little for breathing. Putting the big sub into such a narrow, granite-lined channel was a treacherous operation.

  And it had only just begun.

  32

  Juan de Santiago slammed his fist down on the desk in front of him with painful force. His face was purple with rage.

  "Damn that big nortemericano! He has thwarted me for the last time!"

  Guzman backed further into the corner of the small office, trying to blend in and hide amongst the bookcases and furniture. He had dreaded telling de Santiago of the destruction of the laboratory, of the escape of the American SEAL team, of the death of Jorge Ortiez and the capture of his well-paid scientists. But there was no one else so he had done his duty.

  Margarita Alvarado stood behind El Jefe, kneading the taut muscles of his shoulders.

  "Calm yourself, mi amor," she sweetly implored. "Such rage will certainly cause a heart attack. Just one nortemericano cannot stop a revolution so powerful as yours."

  De Santiago shrugged her hands away brusquely.

  "Leave me alone, woman. You don't understand. This bastard has cost me…has cost my people…billions of pesos. He must be eliminated!"

  He stood and turned toward the window, almost knocking her down with the back of his chair. The small frame of glass looked out across the courtyard to the stables. On beyond, he could just make out the tops of the mountains over the stable roof, out there where they tried to hide from him in the clouds. Several of his soldiers were in the courtyard below, cleaning weapons, doing chores, or simply lounging in the morning sunshine, awaiting the command of their leader to go and fight a battle for the revolution.

  The view out his window was lost on de Santiago. As his anger cooled, he was quickly deep in thought.

  Finally he turned and shouted, "Guzman!" as if he had forgotten that the man was right there in the room with him.

  "Si, El Jefe."

  "This meeting with El Presidente you have mentioned to me? The report says the norteamericano is going to meet with him Thursday afternoon to report on the mission that destroyed our lab?"

  "Si, El Jefe."

  De Santiago grunted.

  "Good, that gives us three days to get ready for a moment that will be written about in the history books of our country for generations to come. Gather a hundred of our best men. We will rid our homeland of two vermin at once and finally return our country to the people." He smiled smugly, satisfied with his sudden momentous decision. “We should have removed Guitteriz the instant his presence became more than a minor bother to us. Now, with the help of the gringos and the blood money of the Americanos, he has become intolerable. And the soldier? I welcome the opportunity to show him how powerful the people are in our country when their cause is just. He will soon see what a fine soldier El Jefe is!”

  De Santiago excitedly outlined his rudimentary plan to Guzman. Neither man noticed Margarita Alvarado quietly slip from the room. She had heard all she needed to hear.

  It was time for El Falcone to rise from the dead and send one more warning.

  "Where's the bastard going, Skipper?"

  Dave Kuhn had been sweating
over these charts for almost twenty-four hours now. The ordeal was starting to show on his face, in the break in his voice.

  Ward glanced around the control room. Kuhn wasn't the only one nearing exhaustion. They were all beaten down by the constant crushing tension. Ward wasn't sure how much longer his crew could hold up under this strain before someone made a mistake. And even the smallest mistake in such close quarters could be tragic.

  The mini-sub had led them far into Puget Sound. The sides of the deep, narrow channel were nearly vertical granite walls. There would be no give there if they strayed even slightly.

  "Don't know, Dave," Ward answered. "He's running out of choices, so I expect we'll find out soon."

  Chris Durgan looked up from his computer screen.

  "Possible contact zig. Solution tracking off."

  "Conn, sonar. Contact is changing course. He’s coming right," Mendoza sang.

  "Conn, aye,” Glass answered, loud enough for everyone in the control room to hear him. “Expected maneuver. He’s coming around to head down the Maury Island reach toward Tacoma. He should steady up on course two-four-zero."

  Glass stepped over to stand beside Ward. Together they looked at the chart. Finally, it was Glass who spoke.

  "Skipper, if he heads through the Tacoma Narrows, we're screwed."

  "Why's that, XO? Water's deep enough. I know it looks a little narrow, but so what? We've come this far."

  "XO, new solution,” Durgan called out. “Range six-one-zero yards, course two-four-four, speed five."

  Glass reached over and patted Durgan on the shoulder. The new course the mini-sub was taking was exactly what he expected.

  "XO, we'll keep following this sleaze until he crawls into a hole or we run out of water,” Ward said quietly. Then, in almost a whisper, he added, “I can’t wait to find out which happens first."

  Glass nodded and went back to work.

  The mini-sub led them through the Dalco Passage to the west then turned south again, entering the Tacoma Narrows. The deep water of the narrows was only a few hundred yards wide, and only thirty fathoms deep at that. It made a slow curving arc, first to the southeast, then around to the southwest before opening into a myriad of coves, inlets and bays.

  The granite walls seemed to close in on them as Ward brought his boat slowly and carefully around the curve of the Narrows. They were cruising a hundred feet under the surface now.

  Only forty-five feet of water separated the top of Spadefish's sail from the afternoon sunshine. Some of the tankers that plied these waters drew more than ninety feet.

  There was only forty feet of murky black water between her keel and the hard, unyielding, rock bottom of the Narrows.

  Rudi Sergiovski called out happily to Phillipe Zurko.

  "We're almost there. I'm taking a short cut up through the Hale Passage. See it there on the chart, between Fox Island and Fosdick Point?"

  Zurko shook himself awake. He had been huddled uncomfortably in the back corner of the cramped space, dozing off, resting from the tedious task of dosing all the bags of cocaine with the additive. He glanced at the chart with no attempt at showing interest.

  "A little shallow, isn't it?"

  Sergiovski nodded.

  "Da, it is. We will use the caterpillar tracks. This way will save us an hour and we will arrive just after darkness." He reached over and flipped a switch. "Stopping the engines. Pull that lever when I tell you to," he said, pointing to a little blue handle a few feet forward of where Zurko sat.

  He flooded a little water into the mini-sub so that it sank to the bottom while it slowed its forward progress. It settled down onto the floor of the sound. Sergiovski turned on a video camera mounted on the bow that gave him a picture of where they were going. The light filtering down through the cloudy water was just enough to enable him to see a few feet ahead.

  He motioned to Zurko and the Colombian pulled the lever as instructed. The caterpillar tacks started to turn. The little sub crawled forward through the shallow water of the passage, creeping its way closer and closer to its rendezvous.

  "I don't know what happened, Skipper," Mendoza explained. "One minute we had solid contact, the next he was gone. No tonals, no broadband, and no active return. He just disappeared."

  Ward slammed his fist onto the table. The pencils and coffee cups jumped and clattered.

  "Damn it! We were so close! There’s no room here to search for him, that’s for sure. I guess it’s time for us to turn this over to someone else." He turned to Ed Beasly and ordered, "Nav, surface the ship. Let's head back for open water before we get her stuck up to her ass in mud."

  "XO, get on the horn and tell JDIA we lost them." The burning sensation Jon Ward had been feeling in the pit of his stomach had just grown noticeably worse.

  The Zibrus crawled through the muck around the north end of Fox Island, hidden in water too shallow for Spadefish to enter, even if she stayed completely on the surface. With their eyes looking ahead, straining to see where they were headed, neither man on the mini-sub saw the huge black shape rise to the surface several miles behind them and slowly steam back in the direction from which they had just come.

  Jason Rashad restlessly paced the length of the pier. Where was that damn sub? Carlos had said it would be here tonight. Sometime tonight. No other details. Well, now it was already two hours after sunset and the son of a bitch had not popped its ass out of the drink yet. Maybe they had stopped for a siesta.

  The night was being wasted.

  The low, misty clouds blowing through alternately hid and revealed the star-studded sky from him. The cool breeze and the glorious view of pine forest and water were wasted on the drug pusher, though. He was here for a purpose, and the quicker he got the job done and got back to Seattle, the better he liked it.

  He pulled a smoke from his pocket and lit it. The flare of the flame from his solid gold Dunhill lighter blinded him so that he didn't see the ripple start a few yards out on the glass-smooth inlet. The tiny sail of the Zibrus was already above the water before he noticed it, and even then, he wasn’t sure he was seeing what he was seeing.

  “Jesus!”

  With its black skin, the thing looked almost alive, like some tubby primordial beast emerging from the depths. Slowly, the mini-sub slid alongside the pier, its sail barely coming to the level of the pier deck. At his signal, two of Rashad’s hired thugs jumped down onto the slick, rounded deck of the sub, as if to try to bulldog the creature into submission. One promptly slid off the side, yelping painfully as he splashed into the cold water. The other man managed to hold on to the sub’s skin and slip lines over the cleats, securing Zibrus to the pier. He threw his comrade a line and pulled him from the water.

  The hatch popped open and Phillipe Zurko jumped out, sucking in all the cool, damp air as he could manage.

  "Who is in charge here?" he finally demanded of the man who was struggling to pull the other from the drink. "We must get to work and unload quickly."

  Rashad stepped to the edge of the pier and took another drag on his cigarette before answering the demanding Latin.

  "I am in charge here,” he called down to him. Zurko looked up abruptly, surprised there was someone up there that he had not noticed. “And we will unload you as quickly as possible. Come on up and stretch your legs while my people start to off load."

  Zurko could just see a large, brown panel truck backing toward him down the pier as he climbed the ladder up to where Rashad offered him a hand up. The vehicle didn't have any lights showing at all, not even its brake lights. The truck ground to a halt with its back door right at the ladder. Six more men, dressed in black and wearing side arms, jumped out the open back door.

  Zurko shivered. If this was an ambush, he was a dead man.

  Rashad, with a friendly enough grin on his dark face, pulled a silver flask from his jacket pocket and handed it to Zurko.

  "Here, you need a drink. Macallem thirty-year-old Scotch. Takes the chill off a fine Seattle evening."<
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  Zurko gratefully accepted the container, unscrewed its lid, and carefully wiped the rim with the tail of his shirt. Only then did he take a healthy swig and hand the flask back to Rashad. It was cold and damp for one accustomed to the tropics. He would gladly take whatever this rather wild individual was offering if it would warm him up.

  "Gracias. It is good to be back on land, my friend. So good I cannot express it properly.” He turned to watch the men line up from the spot where the sub was tied up to where the truck waited. “How long will it take you to unload our cargo? It cannot be safe here."

  Rashad glanced down at the mini-sub, to where a rather large man stood in the hatch yelling orders in a thick Russian accent.

  “It'll go a helluva lot faster when your fat friend gets his ass out of the hatch. Probably tonight and most of tomorrow night."

  "Madre de Dios! Tonight and tomorrow night? Can't you go any faster?" Zurko implored. The longer he was stuck in this place, the greater his chances of the Americanos riding in as he had seen them do in the western movies he had watched as a child, capturing him, seizing El Jefe’s shipment. The shipment for which he was ultimately responsible. The thought of jail frightened Phillipe Zurko even more than entering that sea-going coffin again. He knew that even there, behind heavy bars and thick concrete, he would not be beyond de Santiago’s wrath.

  Rashad snorted and sucked his cigarette for a moment before answering.

  "Do a little math. You have thirty-five tons of coke down there in that soup can, all in kilo bricks. That's thirty-five thousand bricks we have to hand up through that little hatch and put onto a truck." He paused for effect then added, "If you think you can do it faster, my friend, go ahead. We'll find us a comfortable place and watch your ass work."